LONDON, United Kingdom, Jan 6 – Jaap Stam returns to Manchester United on Saturday with the Reading manager plotting an FA Cup giant-killing at the club that sold him when he fell out with Alex Ferguson.

The 44-year-old Dutch former hardman defender, who won three Premier League titles, an FA Cup and the 1999 Champions League during his three-year stay at United, has impressed in his first job in England, guiding Reading to the cusp of the automatic promotion places to the Premier League.

However, his “Royals” confront a United side that are FA Cup holders and at last are beginning to gel under Jose Mourinho, putting together a run of seven successive victories in all competitions.

Stam, whose biography sparked the falling-out with Ferguson and saw him sold to Lazio, said the weekend cup third-round clash was not about him.

“Of course we’re looking forward to it. It’s a great draw, not only for me, but also for the players,” Stam told Reading’s website.

“To play at Old Trafford in front of 80,000 people, against quality players in the FA Cup, a competition everyone wants to do well in, a trophy everybody wants to win, it’s going to be nice.

Struggling Premier League teams Hull and Swansea play each other both with new faces in the dugout, Marco Silva and Paul Clement respectively, and they could be forgiven for having other priorities than a prolonged cup run.

Among the minnows, seventh-tier Stourbridge will bid to add fourth-tier Wycombe Wanderers to their list of victims, having eliminated Northampton Town.

The lowest-ranked team left in the competition — whose manager Gary Hackett runs a chemical distribution company — already have a link to FA Cup history.

Stourbridge goalkeeper Matt Gould is the grandson of Bobby, who guided Wimbledon — fondly known as “the Crazy Gang” — to a stunning upset over Liverpool in the 1988 final.

“He (Bobby) has slept with the FA Cup a few times and I think he chucked my grandma out of the bed to make space!” Gould told the Daily Mail.

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